The Marine Fabricators Association (MFA) Fabrication Excellence Awards started in 1994, sponsored by the MFA, to showcase projects that represent the best in design excellence and quality workmanship that our industry has to offer. Projects submitted by industry professionals are judged by a group of folks prior to the end of the calendar year and the awards are announced and presented to the winners at the annual Marine Fabricators Conference in January.

This awards program—not to be confused with the International Achievement Awards (IAAs) that Advanced Textiles Association (ATA) hosts each year—focuses strictly on marine fabrication in 11 categories, which are: 

• Powerboat – Rigid Enclosures
• Powerboat – Soft Enclosures
• Hybrid Enclosures – Sailboat & Powerboat
• Sailboat Dodgers & Biminis
• Sailboat Enclosures
• Tops & Sunflys
• Travel/Full Covers
• Marine Exterior Upholstery
• Marine Interior Upholstery
• Transformations (Before & After)
• Uniquely Different

How to enter

The process to enter projects has streamlined in recent years to be relatively painless. The competition is open to MFA/ATA members only and entries cost $45 each.

To enter, visit the MFA website to purchase award entries and begin submitting project information and pictures. You will be required to enter: 

• Your company name,
• A contact name,
• The project title,
• The category in which you would like the award entered,
• The project completion date,
• Details about the boat that the project was done for,
• The fabrics and materials used, and
• The name(s) of the people responsible for the project.

Next, write a clear and detailed project description by answering the following prompts:

• Please describe the project, including the client’s initial request.
• What led you to enter this project? What sets this project apart from others you did this past year?

Last but not least, pick the best six images of the project and upload them.

How are projects judged?

Once the project submission deadline has passed, near the end of the year, ATA staff will begin selecting judges. The association keeps a running list of industry members that they ask each year to help with the judging process. Judges must meet the following criteria:

• Master Fabrics Craftsman (MFC) certified
• An MFA member for more than five years
• Has attended at least two MFA events in the last 10 years
• Must be an end-product fabricator (no suppliers)

Judges can enter projects in the awards, but they are prohibited from judging any category in which they have submitted work. Once the judges are confirmed, the first step is for ATA staff and one senior judge to review all submissions to ensure they are entered into the proper categories, and there is no identifying information in the descriptions or pictures. 

There are occasionally pictures submitted that the applicant did not realize have a business sign, work van, etc. in the background, which would reveal their identity. ATA is diligent about not revealing information that may influence a judge’s scoring to ensure projects are judged solely on the quality of the work completed.

ATA staff assembles a PDF file of all applicants in each category. Judges do not receive any company or contact information; they only review the six photos submitted and the answers to the two project description prompts. Judges consider each project under the following five criteria: 

COMPLEXITY – How intricate or complicated is the project, and how does it impact the finished product?

DESIGN – How aesthetically pleasing is the project? Does the design suit its components—fabric, frame, etc.? Is the design appropriate given its surroundings?

WORKMANSHIP – Is the project free of obvious flaws in workmanship? What is the overall quality of the work?

UNIQUENESS – How unique is the project? Does the uniqueness of the project impact the overall quality?

FUNCTION – How well does the project serve the function for which it was designed?

Judges score each of the five criteria above on a scale of 1 to 10. There are several judges in each category, and the respective scores of each project submission are averaged out so that judges are scoring the projects based on the judging opinions of several MFC-certified industry professionals. ATA staff collects the results from the respective judges, tabulates them and averages each judge’s response to determine the final scores of all projects. 

Revealing the winners

These results are not shared with the judges or anyone else until the night of the awards dinner ceremony at the annual Marine Fabricators Conference. Pin boards display all submissions for the duration of the event. These posters are printed on high-quality 18-by-11-inch paper and show the photos, project descriptions and company information of the applicant.

They also indicate which submissions are from first-time applicants—attendees get to vote for their favorite project submitted by a first timer, and the winner receives the Rookie of the Year award. They can also vote for their favorite overall project; the winner is given the People’s Choice award. Both awards are relatively new to the program. 

There is also an Award of Distinction given to one canvas project and one upholstery project. To determine these two awards, ATA staff sends the judges all the Award of Excellence winners in each category to vote for one upholstery and one canvas project. This means the judges (who are anonymous) will know the winners of each category when they attend the conference, but their lips are sealed until the awards dinner!

ATA puts together a wonderful presentation during the awards ceremony dinner, which is held on Saturday night as the last event at the conference. It showcases each project submitted in a category before announcing its winners. 

In each category, there will be one first-place, or Award of Excellence, award and one Outstanding Achievement Award. Judges may elect to award fewer awards in a category based on myriad factors, and the decision is final. Each winner is invited to the stage to receive their plaque and take a picture with the chairman of the MFA Board of Directors. The Rookie of the Year, People’s Choice and Awards of Distinction awards are announced at the end of the evening.

In addition to plaques, ATA provides winners with a digital press release that can be shared on your social media channels. One of our favorite things to do is collect all the posters from our awards submissions to take back to our shop with us. We buy some inexpensive frames from Amazon and place them in areas around our shop. Even if they are not award-winning projects, they still showcase excellent work to customers.

I hope this answers questions you may have; if you thought about entering one or several projects, I encourage you to do so! The more submissions we get, the better the competition and more prominent the awards become.

I hope you all have been having a busy and successful year, and that we get a chance to see you at an upcoming MFA event this fall or winter! 

Kyle Van Damme, MFC, is the owner of Marine Tops Unlimited in Omro, Wis., and sits on the Marine Fabricators Association (MFA) Board of Directors. Contact him at Kyle@MarineTops.com and +1 920 420 2677.

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SIDEBAR: Tips for preparing your submission

To best represent your project to the judges, consider these tips when preparing your submission:

• Take high-resolution pictures of your project with good lighting, capturing several angles that show the complexity and quality of your work. If you use an iPhone to take photos, go to your Settings and find the Camera first. Change the format from HEIC to JPG if it’s not already set—this will give you the highest quality phone pics possible!

• If someone else, like a professional photographer, took the photos you are submitting with your project, please include any credit necessary to publish the photos for editorial purposes (Example: Photos by Carmel Brantley). All winners are featured in the March/April issue of Marine Fabricator, with some Award of Excellence winners featured in other issues throughout the year.

• Dive deep into the project when writing your descriptions—don’t worry about being overly wordy. Remember that these are the only details the judges will use to score your project, so you need to help them appreciate the work that went into creating your masterpiece!